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The RICL: Anthropology and forensic science
blood, bone fusion, Caroline Wilkinson, DNA analysis, Donald Findlay, Dundee University, Ethelred II, facial reconstruction, fingerprints, forensic evidence, identification, lectures, Leicester Greyfriars, Oxford, pelvis, Professor Dame Sue Black, Richard III, Robert II, Royal Institution, skeletons, skull, St. Brice’s Day Massacre, St. Nicholas, teeth, trauma, Turi King, VikingsI have made a habit of watching the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for over forty years. A single scientist, with guest contributors, covers a subject over three (to five) days and demonstrates some of the detail to a live audience of inquisitive children, who take part in the experiments. Last year’s lecturer was Professor Dame…
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I don’t know which five of our medieval monarchs you’d choose as the most fearsome warriors, but according to this article it seems the Fearsome Five are (in chronological order) William I, Edward I, Robert the Bruce, Henry V and … Richard III. Now, I’m not saying Richard wasn’t a fearsome warrior, because he was,…
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The Stanley who found religion – Sir John Stanley of Honford.
Anne Benger, Anne Boleyn, Bishops of Ely, clerical celibacy, executions, Fleet prison, Flodden, George Legh of Adlington, Handforth, illegitimacy, James Stanley, Joan Larke, Manchester Cathedral, monks, property disputes, Sir John Stanley, Sir Urien Brereton, Stanleys, Westminster Abbey, William HanfordSir John Stanley was a grandson of Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby and Eleanor Neville. His father was James Stanley (c 1465-1525) a cleric who eventually became Bishop of Ely. (He retained multiple benefices and seems to have been as often in Lancashire as in Ely. He is buried in what is now Manchester…
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Having recently written about Minster Lovell and the fact that the remains of Francis Lovell may have been found walled up there, I found myself drawn to yet another Cotswold house with a similar legend. This is Owlpen Manor on the western flank of the Cotswolds. This Owlpen Manor link mentions four ghosts, but only…
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Antony Woodville, quite early in his career, had an affair with Gwenllian Stradling which led to the birth of a daughter, Margaret Woodville. As it turned out, although he subsequently married twice, this was his only child. Or certainly, his only child who grew up. The Stradlings were a long-standing Glamorgan gentry family, based at…
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I had never been much interested in medieval history. I thought of them as backwards and a little too obsessed w the afterlife. However, the “what ifs” of history always intrigued me. What if the Nazis won WWII? What if the north had been defeated in the American Civil War? And so forth. I’d always…